trib.al – Career diplomat John Hoover spent more than a year cooling his heels in suburban Washington as he waited for the Senate to confirm him as the new ambassador to Sierra Leone. He finally was confirmed on Sept. 11 and reached the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown on Oct. 1 — smack in the middle of the Ebola epidemic. Hoover, 54, took charge at an embassy operating in a crisis mode, and under an evacuation order that had separated many staffers from spouses and children who had returned to the United States.